


Another Year, Another Yuletide

by FebobeFic_Archivist



Category: The Lord of the Rings - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-12
Updated: 2021-01-12
Packaged: 2021-03-16 23:00:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,023
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28714671
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FebobeFic_Archivist/pseuds/FebobeFic_Archivist
Summary: On 1 Yule 1440, Elanor shares the day. . .and a special conversation. . .with her beloved Uncle Frodo. Set in my Silence AU.
Kudos: 1





	Another Year, Another Yuletide

**Author's Note:**

> I have chosen to use the terms "Sam-dad" and "Mother Rose" rather than more conventional terms like "Papa" and "Mamma" because these are the terms used in the conversation between Sam and fifteen-year-old Elanor in Sauron Defeated (Volume IX of The History of Middle-Earth).

"He's asking for you."

"I know." Elanor swallowed as she set the cup of carefully prepared cambric tea on the tray. "I'll be right there."

"If you'd rather, I can take it - " 

Turning to her mother, Elanor shook her head firmly. "No. He wants me."

It was Yule, but it hardly seemed like it. Uncle Frodo hadn't been out of bed all morning, and the rest of the day wasn't looking likely, either, not in Elanor's estimation. Something was wrong, terribly wrong.

Carrying the tray down the hall, she knocked lightly at Uncle Frodo's door, then pushed it open slowly, making her way into the dimly lit room. 

He lay curled in bed, as before, when she had come to see if she could help Sam-dad with anything, the blankets pulled up close about him till he was fair buried in them. Though he was pale, he looked feverish, and yet he shivered, trembling like a leaf in a winter gale. 

It fair broke Elanor's heart. 

"Who's there?" Scarcely a faint murmur, just barely audible, and his eyes made no effort to open. Setting the tray carefully on the bed, Elanor bent over him. 

"It's me, Uncle Frodo. . .Elly. I've brought your second breakfast."

"Elanor." He pronounced her name slowly, softly as a whisper, as if the effort cost him dearly. "Please, no. Can't. . . ."

"Uncle Frodo, you *must* eat something. And it's your favourite. . .creamed mushrooms on toast with a cup of cambric tea. I've only just made it up. Won't you try a little for me?"

Heavy eyelashes flickered faintly as he forced his eyes open with a will. The blue-eyed gaze that stared out at her chilled her to the marrow. Haunted it was, and hollow, like the eyes of somebody already dead.

"I. . .I suppose I. . .could try."

"Thank you, Uncle Frodo. Now, just let me help get you more comfortable so's you can eat." Gently she slipped her arms around him, raising him as gingerly as she could manage, reaching one hand for pillows to slip behind his thin shoulders to prop him up carefully. Her fingers brushed along his back, and she winced as she realized she could count his ribs now. Shuddering, she tried not to think about it, forcing a soft smile as she eased him back onto the pillows and pulled the tray closer.

"There now. How's that?"

He gave her a weak nod. "Thank you, Elanor."

Elanor could find no words. Instead, she reached for the fork and began cutting a small mouthful of the warm nourishment. There was no chance this side of the Brandywine of Uncle Frodo being strong enough to feed himself today, not in this condition; first breakfast had already proven a disaster that way, according to Sam-dad's report. And he seemed worse now than he had when Elanor saw him earlier in the morning - the fever was new, though Sam-dad and Mother Rose had had time enough to have a look at him and pronounce it another of his bad turns. At least it wasn't lung fever coming on.

Then again. . .was this really so much easier for him?

"Try just a little for me."

Reluctantly Uncle Frodo opened his mouth, accepting the forkful of creamed mushrooms and toast warily. When he finished it, Elanor offered a sip of the cambric tea, sweetened just to his taste, holding the cup steady to his lips. And so they repeated the process time and again, slowly and painstakingly, until Uncle Frodo finally shook his head.

"No more, Elanor, please."

Elanor looked at the plate. Half empty. Half full. At any rate, that was half of it in his stomach now, and most of the cambric tea gone, so she decided to abandon the battle in hopes of winning the war at elevenses and luncheon. 

So different.

So different from last Yule.

And what, Elanor, she chided herself, will you do if next year he isn't here at all?

Perish the thought. She couldn't bear it.

Rising, she started to gather up the tray. When she looked back at Uncle Frodo, his eyes had already fluttered closed once more, his breathing slowing raggedly.

He was already asleep.

****

"He hasn't much longer with us, has he?"

Mother Rose sighed. "I don't know, Elanor. Sometimes we've thought that and he's taken a good turn back and surprised us all. . .remember? There's no telling. He may pass on tonight; he may be out of bed tomorrow, eating anything we fix him. It isn't something any of us can know."

Elanor nodded nervously, slicing mushrooms at the kitchen table to go in Uncle Frodo's favourite mushroom soup. "It's only. . .today's bad."

"I know, love. I know." Mother Rose laid a hand on her shoulder. "And that is why you must be especially brave now."

"I don't feel brave."

Mother Rose smiled sadly. "Those are the times when we have to be the bravest."

****

Uncle Frodo was sleeping only fitfully, Queen Arwen's gem clutched in his fist, when Elanor took elevenses to him, so she made up her mind at once to wake him anyhow. He looked for all the world as if he were caught in a nightmare, and indeed he started when she touched his right shoulder gently but firmly, just as Sam-dad had taught her. 

"Ssshh, it's all right," she murmured quickly. "It's only Elanor. I have elevenses for you."

"Already?" 

"It's been nigh on two hours." Carefully Elanor arranged the tray before him. "Gingerhobbits and cambric tea. If you'd rather have something else, I'll run and fix it - "

"No. . .no, this is fine. Thank you." Cautiously he reached for one of the gingerhobbit lads, hand shaking with a fine trembling motion. Nonetheless, he managed to grasp the treat successfully, and Elanor felt it wrong to take that away from him as well. Bad enough to have to be fed, she felt sure.

"How are you feeling?" she ventured quietly as she watched him eat, occasionaly offering the cambric tea to spare him the effort and the risk of spilling.

He shook his head vaguely, finishing off a gingerhobbit foot before replying out loud. "It's worse this time. I. . .Elanor, I. . .don't know. I don't know what. . .it means, or how long. . .it will last; I. . .wander in the darkness."

"But not alone." She reached to slip her hand around his, to clasp his thin fingers in her own softer ones. "Never alone."

****

"It's perfect, Elanorelle." 

Elanor smiled faintly at Sam-dad's praise as she studied her tray for Uncle Frodo's luncheon. She and Mother Rosie had prepared his favourite mushroom soup. . .broiled chicken on toast. . .broiled mushrooms, another of his favourite dishes. . .apple custard. . .and gold and silver cake. The effect was, she thought, very pretty. . .though whether any of it would be touched remained to be seen.

"Thank you."

"You do him more good than any medicine, you know."

Elanor felt despair well in her heart. "Then why can't I make him any better?"

"Because he's hurt past fixing. We can't change that, none of us." Sam-dad took her hands in his sturdy brown ones. "But we can make his life better. And that you do."

"Doesn't feel much like it today."

"It's true just the same." Sam-dad pressed her hands gently. "Took me a right long time to get that through my head, and I can't say as I ever feel like I do enough good for him now, but. . .he's loved. And he knows it. And love is all that's worth having in this world, Elanorelle. Love and living are what's worth fighting for." His eyes misted a little. "And that's what Mr. Frodo near died for. You remind him of what's good in the world. . .of what was worth fighting for. Don't ever forget that."

Swallowing hard, Elanor threw her arms around Sam-dad. 

****

Coaxing luncheon into Uncle Frodo proved to be an even more painstaking task than second breakfast. With the coming of afternoon, his chills had worsened and his fever risen, so that he was disinclined to take any nourishment. Still, Elanor coaxed and cajoled, wheedling each mouthful past his lips as best she could, concentrating on the mushroom soup and broiled mushrooms, the broiled chicken itself and the apple custard. The gold and silver cake was pretty, but it wouldn't provide the same nourishment as mushrooms and stock and cream, chicken and apple and eggs. Those were what he needed now.

They worked mostly in silence, speaking only when necessary, but at last Elanor swallowed, finding her courage to ask the question tugging at her heart.

"Uncle Frodo. . .why did you not choose to sail with the elves?"

He looked at her wearily, confusion clouding his gaze.

"You could have been out of pain. You might never have been ill again."

"Ah." His eyes cleared, and for an instant Elanor thought that she saw that hollow look sharpen into a keen, pensive expression. His breath seemed to come more easily now, and he spoke without so many pauses in the middle of his sentences. "Elanor. . .that is something I always thought that we would discuss when you grew old enough. I suppose now is as good a time as any."

He paused, swallowing.

"I felt at home in the company of the elves. They were kind to me. But they were not hobbits, and. . ."

He hesitated.

"When you were born, I was. . .unwell. But I was so overjoyed to see you, and it. . .made me feel better. Because I felt that everything had been worth it, you see, if life in the Shire could go on as it should. . .if Sam and Rose could have their family. . .even if it meant that I could never be. . .as I was before."

One slender hand went to the white gem at his throat. 

"And I knew that I could never have that for myself. . .my own family, I mean. But. . .Sam and Rose shared theirs with me. Shared you with me. I had planned to leave in the autumn. But after a few months of bouncing you on my knee and telling you all the nursery-rhymes and stories my mother told me when I was a child, I could not bear the thought of never seeing you again. . .of never seeing you grow up, or seeing the rest of Sam and Rose's children born and raised in Bag End."

He mustered a wan but genuine smile. 

"And so I said my good-byes to Bilbo and Gandalf and Master Elrond and the others, and stayed behind with you and your parents."

Blue eyes met hers.

"Are you sorry that I did?"

"Oh, no!" Elanor's breath caught. Life without Uncle Frodo? 

She could not imagine what it would have been like.

Every birthday-party, he had been there, pale but laughing and warm and wonderful.

Every time she had needed his shoulder to cry into, he had been there.

Every time she had known anything in her life worth sharing, she had shared it with Uncle Frodo, even though he assured her that the day would come she would have secrets she wanted to keep even from him.

"No. . .in fact, I can't think of anything better than your staying."

He smiled, and she continued to coax tidbits of food into him. At last, though, he would take no more, and she rose, gathering up the tray.

But a slender hand caught at her sleeve.

"Elanor - please - "

Quick as a wink she turned, lowering the tray back onto the bed as she sat beside him once more. "Please what?"

"Please. . .I know you have to. . .take that away, but. . .after. . .stay?"

His blue eyes bored straight through her. 

Well, there was afternoon tea to get, and the rest of the baking to do, and Yule supper being prepared, but nothing Sam-dad and Mother Rose couldn't and wouldn't see to if Uncle Frodo needed her.

It would keep.

Some things wouldn't.

Clasping his thin fingers in hers, she smiled, reaching up with her other hand to brush back dark curls from his narrow face.

"Of course I'll stay, Uncle Frodo. I promise."

-the end-


End file.
